Homogenous
by TsukinoSora
Summary: A mixture of stories with a variety of characters, all hatched from the different prompts of FMA FIC CONTEST.
1. Rain: Goodnight, Innocence Gone

**Prompt: **Rain

**Rating: **Mature  
**Word Count:** 500  
**Characters**: Ed, Nina  
**Disclaimer:** Me no own, you no sue, yesh?  
**Setting:** Episode 7 of the [original] Anime  
**Summary:** She had called him 'big brother' like they had really been family.

**A/N:** This was probably my favourite episode and the one that got me into the story in the first place. I hope it's not too confusing. (And no, I can't believe I used intermittent italics _again_. I don't know how this happened.)

* * *

**GOODNIGHT, INNOCENCE GONE**

* * *

This form of precipitation was less than ideal.

It should be snow, like the kind they played in together. Snow, as she would have wanted it to be - she, the little girl with pigtails and the face full of smiles. Nina, the little girl filled with laughter, who had enough happiness for the whole world.

_Why must all the good be taken?_ His body begged to shake with grief as he contemplated innocence and sacrifice. His pride did not let it, but with clenched fists he indulged himself in memories of her giggles and joy. She had tried to tell jokes, with success on the timing but not in actual concept.

"_Hey Edward, what do you call an egg and a book?"_

"_Um, I dunno, what?"_

"_An EGGBOOK!" she said, erupting into furious cachinnation at her own nonsense. He couldn't help but grin._

Silly girl. Her merriment still rang in his ears, overpowering the sirens and the pitter-patter of droplets falling around him. They would wash her blood away so that it would no longer contaminate the sidewalk, although the stains would forever linger on his heart.

She was adorable… she had called him 'big-brother' like they had really been family. She drew pictures of him and her and Al together and had no qualms interrupting their studying with her giddiness and absurd quips about irrelevant things. She tried to 'teach him' how to draw and he tried to teach her alchemy in return; she wanted him to start with cooking since he said that's what alchemy had started from in the first place. When his failed attempt at pesto sat before her, she had reprimanded him for it.

"_Ew, I can't eat this! It smells __**ugly.**__"_

"…It's what you wanted!" He was flustered. "You should eat it. How would you feel if you made **me** something and I said that to **you**?"

"_I would be happy."_

"No, you wouldn't. You'd be sad that I wasn't going to eat what you had worked on just for me."

"_No, I would be __**happy**__, because then I could eat it all my__**self**__. So there."_

Even that amused him. He should have made her something special, something she would have really loved, even more than the rose petals falling from the sky. He should have done a lot of things.

"_Brother?"_

"…_Yeah?"_

"_Sorry, I know you're sleeping but… I hope you do well tomorrow. I love you big brother."_

She couldn't have loved him; she was just a child saying what she thought she was supposed to say. But none of that mattered anymore, because she wasn't a child, was she? She was an experiment strewn across the pavement. She was gone like stars in a stormy sky. Gone like the quiet of the night, suppressed now by the sounds of angry thunder. She was gone.

And at that, he finally started to cry. She hadn't deserved this.

…He was glad for the rain which masked his tears falling on the ground.

* * *

**END**

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated!


	2. Chimera: Temptation of the Sphinx

**Prompt:** Chimera

**Word Count:** 1000  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Characters:** Ed, Dante  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own FMA. Or Greek mythology.  
**Summary:** Dante knows everything… Or at least, she thinks she does.

**A/N:** It's kind of what I would have wanted for episode 49, where Ed confronts Dante, sans Rose and her baby. However, I put the story in Lior, for the sake of the raging war. Dante and Lyra are used interchangeably, as are lion/lioness.

_"The sphinx guarded a pass to the city and asked all who wished to pass a riddle. Those who failed to give the correct answer were eaten. The riddle was: 'What thing walks on four legs in the morning, on three in the evening, and is weakest when it walks on four?' The correct answer was Man, because he walks on four as a baby and leans on a stick in old age. When Oedipus gave the correct answer, the Sphinx hurled herself over a cliff, and died." –Arthur Cotterell_

* * *

**_TWISTED_, SADISTIC**  
Temptation of the Sphinx

* * *

"So, what will it be, Edward?" Lyra toyed with the stones in her hands as she grinned at him, her facetious words dripping with mischief. She sat informally in a chair, legs hanging over one arm as her back rested against the other, resting like a queen in a throne. Golden light from the setting desert sun shone around her, illuminating her bejeweled neck and hands. A serpent devoured itself in the form of a ring on her middle finger, and a lioness sat in chains beside her, starved-looking and aching to hunt. Edward suspected he was its next planned meal.

Her stench made him nauseous, as did her sardonic offers. He'd told her what he'd surmised about her very existence, and she had traded him stories about Hohenheim and herself living for centuries off of the involuntary sacrifice of others. It came with a threat: she had subordinates who waited to destroy what he held dear. (She would not stop with Lior.) However, he had a choice: should he aid her in her soul switching, she would give him the philosopher's stone.

He'd refused, and her laughter reverberated along the walls of the empty building as the civil war raged on outside. "There is always a price to be paid, and so, there is always something to pay with. Even if _you_ have nothing left to give, there are always weaker ones to use. You'll learn." She said.

"Is Dante even your real name?" He switched subjects. "What _else_ have they called you?"

She smirked. "Lilith." She hissed without remorse.

"… What _are_ you?" Edward asked.

"Me?" Dante let out a psychotic giggle. "…I am Aries as I am golden, I am Ares of war, of slaughter, and destruction. I am guardian and gatekeeper to knowledge which is sacred." She moved her feet so that they were firmly planted on the ground, and after looking down momentarily, she glanced up, eyes ablaze with sparks of malice. "I am that I am. That's all I'll say."

Ed furrowed his brow. She was disgusting, that's what she was. "You think you're so damn _wise…_ You think you're a God, since you've seen the gate? You're wrong, Dante."

"Wouldn't _you_ like to live forever, learn it all?"

"You're sick."

"We alchemists _are_ diseases of society."

"…I'm done here."

"Fine, leave. _Try_ and run like your father; save your brother, marry that mechanic… I'll find you, and dispose of them like I did Trisha. Your choice."

_No…_

Edward stood speechless, horrified by her words. The building shuddered as bombs erupted outside and flames shot through the windows, the riot echoing his disrupted mind. The curtains caught fire; the ceiling followed. Dante smiled and licked her lips. Now that the opportunity for mockery had arisen, she'd strike like a cobra hiding in the reeds.

"Hey Edward, I've a riddle for you."

Silence. His eyes burned as the room did.

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the daytime, and _none_ in the evening?"

Ed snarled… She had given an erroneous riddle, and he knew not how to reply. Before he could find an answer, Lyra unhooked the lion. "You!" she chimed, and the lion lunged. Hurriedly he clapped and drew walls up out of the floor. He had to evade the lion, but how, now that they were cornered by fire?

Their entrapment inspired an idea: he would trap _her_ in with the lion. He clapped, and three walls encircled her.

"Hey Dante, I've a riddle for you." Ed started. The lioness growled: she was hungry. _Clap_: another wall drove it closer to its master. "A dog has a litter of seven, each pup as evil as can be." _Clap_: A slope forced the lion down towards her, and Ed panted from the effort and motion of creating the maze. Lyra saw how the tide had turned and gripped the handles of her throne with whitened knuckles. _Clap_: he now stood behind her.

"What do you call the mother of the little sins?"

"Damn you…" she spat.

"No. A _bitch_." He said, emphatically. One last clap, and the floor rose up to surround her - she was imprisoned with the lion in nothing more than a few meters of space.

"How could you not get _that_ one?" Edward said, cocked head and wry smile showing as he stood atop the fourth wall. A flaming piece of wood fell from the ceiling and rolled feebly towards the lioness, who was unfazed. She hunched her hind legs and back, readying herself to capture her prey. Dante looked up at him with tearing eyes and a firmly set mouth.

"I'll see you in the eighth circle of Hell, Edward." She stated, barely louder than a regretful whisper. The lion growled once more, bearing its claws.

He would never ponder why someone who claimed to know everything would assert to there being such a place. If Hell existed, it was having your mother die twice, a father's absence, and living every day in fear of losing the only family you had left to the will of monsters like _her_. She knew nothing, and so he cast her words aside. He was an atheist, and she was wrong.

"No. You wont."

He turned away and more pieces of the ceiling fell around him, crackling as they hit what was left of the floor. Heat engulfed him as he jumped down from the prison walls. He heard the lion as it struck, eviscerating her rotting flesh. She screamed.

The sun sank into the sky as she descended into her inferno, her yells dying as she did… Her last breaths would not even echo into the night she used to reign.

Edward lifted himself up and began running. He did not know how he would retrieve what he had lost, but he knew that he would. He would save the ones he loved. He wiped bitter tears away as he exited, narrowly escaping the flames.

_She did this herself._

* * *

_**end**_

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** A)I never believed for one second that Trisha was really "sick," so in the anime, I always imagined that Dante killed her out of jealousy. B) Okay… there's a LOT of symbolism here from like 20384023984203984209384203948 different places so I hope to explain some things: For me, I focused on the Chimera of Greek myth – a monster comprised of a lion, a snake, and a goat. (Hence, the lion, serpent imagery, and the "aries as I am Golden" in reference to the golden fleece/ram constellation... yeahhhhh... it was the closest I could get to a goat. Anyway.) The Chimera was also said to be the parent of the Sphinx, who guarded the gates to ancient cities with a riddle almost no one could answer. (Just like the one in Harry Potter, but NOT the same as the sphinx in Egyptian myth, who is more… good. Haha.) A lot of Greek myth finds it's way here, as you can see. There's also allusions to the serpent that devours it's own tail, which although is seen as the tattoo of the homunculi, is only mentioned once and never explained [in the anime.] I also drew heavily from the works of Carl Jung and D. H. Lawrence in regards to serpents, and of course from Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno, in which the eighth circle of Hell is where frauds (including alchemists) go. And. Of course, Lilith, Adam's first wife, was a woman/snake who ruled the night and is from the story of the Garden of Eden. She was omitted from the Bible, but you'll find her in Hebrew stories. The quote, "I am that I am" is something God was supposed to have said, which Dante says because she thinks she's God. Does that all make sense? Yes? Please? Haha. I hope so. Shmeeehhhhh.

P.S. If a thousand words make up a picture, than check out the "Victorious Sphinx" by Gustav Moreau. It's my inspiration for this word-limited fic.

This was the hardest story I've had to write, honestly.

(I can't get this part to align left, even with html code! Arrghh!)


	3. AU: Epilepsia Timor

**Prompt: **AU

**Word Count:** 3376, although Word likes to play games with me on such things.  
**Characters:** Ed, Greed, Envy, Ling, Al, Gluttony, Father, and Lust decided to barge in too  
**Series**: Manga, (although Lust's character is more anime-related in the fact that she is insubordinate to the master of the sins… still evil like in the manga though.)  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Disclaimer:** Still not Hiromu.  
**Setting:** Underneath Central; Spoilers for up to 54 and 55.  
**Warnings:** The first part is the most AU of it all, if that makes any sense.  
**Summary:** An experiment traps Ed inside his own mind, sending him careening through nightmares.

**A/N:** I was seriously writing a crackfic about a love triangle with Barry the Chopper until this popped up and consumed me. I wrote this while listening to "Truth is a Whisper" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "Little House" by the Fray, "Decode" by Paramore, (particularly the last minute of it, (and no I'm not a Twilight fan, (whoa, triple parenthesis!))), along with several angry Skillet and Evanescence songs. Not sure if my latin is correct in the title, but hopefully you get the idea. This is extremely disjointed, I warn you.

Epilepsy: _Neurological disorders characterized by sudden attacks of motor, sensory, or psychic malfunction with or without loss of consciousness or convulsive seizures, occurring during abnormal electrical activity in the brain.  
_[from Latin epil psia, _to lay hold of,_ ] Timor:_ Fear_

* * *

**EPILEPSIA TIMOR  
**Amor Vincit Omnia

* * *

"What the Hell are you doing to him?!" Ling shouted at the thing in white robes - the thing masquerading as a man. Gluttony pushed him farther into the dirt, grinding Ling's face down under all his weight. He hoped this would be over soon. He was hungry.

"BROTHER!" Al called out, trying uselessly to use alchemy on something, anything, to manipulate matter into a more tangible splinter of his now fragmented reality. He would be crying, if he could.

"Shut up, maggot." The man said to Ling, without a second glance. There were more pertinent matters at hand. "Lust, you deceitful little ingrate. What have you done?"

"I acted without your permission." She smiled, in a sickeningly sweet way, at her creator. "It is for the good of your experimentation." He had made a mistake in trusting her to administer the stone, for she had taken it and walked to Edward instead of Ling. She had wanted to slash him with her bare hands. She had wanted to see why he was the sacrifice, why he was forbidden for her to annihilate, assassinate… why she couldn't spill his blood on the cold hard ground. She had wanted to watch him bleed. She was thirsty.

She had suggested previously that they make the alchemists into homunculi, for Father would never tell her why he dared not do so. Envy seemed to know, but he was far from telling her either. So when Father said he had an empty seat for Greed and given her the opportunity she had been craving, she had gone to the alchemist, swiped a claw across his face, and dropped the stone inside.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Envy spat at her, now only holding the suit of armour under his arm. She was ungracious to their master. She was a liar and a cheat. She was stupid.

"This was not a discussion." Father said. His anger grew. "Not even the human-to-homunculus transformation was completed. _You seem to forget that you are expendable. **The alchemists are to be used for other purposes!**_"

Lust said nothing in response. She was aware of the consequences of her actions, but feared them not, for the Father was now in a terrible position of being forced to recognise his own ignorance. He didn't entirely know how this would play out, and he wasn't nearly as omnipotent as he thought he was.

Ed yelled and kicked and shook, his eyes rolling back into his head. "What's going on?" Ling asked, far beyond frightened.

"He is lost inside his own mind." Father replied. "There's no way out, from there."

* * *

"Al! AL! _**ALPHONSE!**" Edward screamed to the emptiness. "Al…" he cried, no longer able to see the suit of armour that sat near to him. He was alone and he was sinking, descending, falling away into darkness… Winds rushed past him as he tumbled; echoes of maniacal laughter attacked his ears, rendering his thoughts incoherent and tearing his insides asunder. He crossed his arms around his chest, trying to keep himself from shattering._

"Hah… Hah… Well, what have we here?"

The voice ate his conscience away and reverberated tortuously under his heart. He shut his eyes in anguish.

"_What's a kid doing here?_" it mocked, and Ed choked on the words.

"_And a tiny one, at that…"_ it said. The piercing blows from the wind and subsequent convulsions prevented Ed from any objection to the insult on his size, although he vowed to be angry about it later.

"_NOT A TALKTATIVE ONE, ARE YOU?"_ It yelled.

"Shut up! SHUT UP! Stop…" Ed begged. He moved his hands over his ears to shut the voice out, to no avail.

_"I AM THE GREAT AND UNCONQUERABLE GREED-SAMA! THERE IS NO STOPPING FOR ME!" _It laughed. "_YOU SEEM LIKE ONE WHO WONT BE ABLE TO ENDURE THIS. MOST DON'T, SO I CAN'T SAY I'M SURPRISED. NOT MANY CAN HANDLE MY GREATNESS."_

Every word seemed to grow louder than the last, and Edward opened his eyes to address the creature that uttered them. He saw only the markings of a face, some indication of fiery eyes and a place for a mouth with a malicious grin. It hurt almost as much to look at as it did to hear.

"_I SUPPOSE THIS MEANS YOU DO NOT ACCEPT ME?!"_ It said, making every bone in Ed's body ache.

"…Never." Ed managed to swear through gritted teeth.

The creature cackled uproariously at this, shaking the world with its mirth at Edward's assertion. _"SO. IT IS DECIDED."_

"LET IT BEGIN."

* * *

"EDWARD!" Al tried to reach the body of his brother, but Envy shifted more weight onto him until he saw his metal shell bend and warp under the pressure. The veins on Ed's body and grown and broken up the pale of his skin with their protrusions and he contorted into strange positions while muttering incomprehensible nothings to no one.

"It's no use! He can't hear you." Envy snarled. If Al thought he detected some sort of fear in his voice, his own shock and discord prevented him from saying so.

"What's happening to him?!" the younger Elric cried as he and Ling watched in horror.

"We shall see." the man who looked like his father replied, with no further explanations.

He didn't have any.

* * *

**SMASH.**

Edward slammed into the floor (there was a floor?) with full force, knocking the breath right out of him. He gasped for air. Rock and dirt and gravel derided the skin on his hands with unforgiving sharp edges as he lifted himself on one knee and elbow, trying hopelessly to stand.

_"I'M GOING TO WARN YOU, SMALL ONE. I ALWAYS WIN THIS FIGHT."_

Greed's words manifested themselves into a spotlight now shining on Edward, and he looked up, seeing nothing but himself and the black. Suddenly he found himself strapped to a chair that had appeared from nowhere. The world tilted and teetered and tottered until coming to rest with a deafening _click_. The bindings from the chair cut into his hands and legs as they stretched ever tighter, and Ed felt the air dissipate as it was stolen from him once again, the strap on his chest constricting what little breath he had regained from the crash moments before.

_"THIS PART IS THE ONE THAT HURTS THE MOST. THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU FAIL."_

Ed scanned the darkness, looking for the face he had seen before, but it didn't show itself. The words surrounded him, biting into his body and mind.

_"MOST HUMANS FEAR ME FROM THE BEGINNING, BUT REALLY, I AM NOTHING TO FEAR."_

Edward's eyes watered. This thing spoke to him in more than words, it spoke in the agony and suffering that now assaulted every fiber of his being. The floor began to rotate slowly, a loud grinding noise emitting from somewhere under him. It grated against his ears just as Greed's voice did.

_"YOU SHALL SEE, WHEN YOU SUCCUMB, THAT THE DISPAIR YOU HAVE ALREADY SELFISHLY AFFLICTED YOURSELF WITH IS WHAT YOU SHOULD FEAR. NOW THE REAL QUESTION IS – CAN YOU SURVIVE YOURSELF?"_

Ed's head beat and throbbed, taking place of his heart which now stood still. This could get worse?

"_YES." _Greed said, reading his thoughts.

"Oh, God…" Ed thought, knowing there was no such being to hear his plea.

Then it began.

The pain was excruciating.

* * *

"Mum, where's Dad?" the small boy with the blond hair had asked, rubbing his sleepy amber eyes. He had thought it was to be another day of questions and learning and playing, another day of alchemic circles drawn with chalk on the sidewalk underneath the sun.

It wasn't sunny today. It had started to rain as she spoke, concealing her breaking voice with the coinciding rumbles of thunderclouds. "He'll be back," she had said.

Luckily, Al was too young to hear her tears when she told him the same thing later that day.

_"AW, DADDY LEFT YOUR FAMILY? HOW SAD."_ The voice chortled. Ed braced himself for the coming barrage of memories.

* * *

"What's with the car by Winry's house?" Ed had asked, excited. It had looked official and important - It had looked like it was full of buttons and gauges and several other things to explore and transmute.

"…I need you both to sit down." Mother had said, but grabbed them in a crushing hug before letting them reach the couch.

"What's wrong, Mum?" Al had asked.

"You two are going to go over there the second that car leaves. Your friend needs you right now."

"Why?" Edward had questioned, forgetting the fact that he would never be friends with a girl, much less worry about one. Even one as pretty as… her.

"Winry's parents are gone, darling. We found out before you all came home from school."

"Well yeah, but they're coming back when the war is over, right?" Al had responded.

"…Not that kind of gone." The silence had dropped on them like a dense fog, suffocating them in its weight. "You mean… the _forever_ kind of gone?" Al had asked.

Somehow Ed had known his little brother was right.

_"YOU HUMANS ALWAYS DO COME TO REGRET THE WARS YOU FIGHT, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FUELED BY YOUR OWN SINS. THE IRONY IS SO BEAUTIFULLY SAD."_

* * *

The basket had thrown itself upon the ground, spilling its contents onto the floor below. Mother had lain there without movement, even when they had called out her name upon opening the door.

"Mum?" Al had offered again, though she couldn't hear him. Edward felt the world grow heavy on his shoulders.

"Mum?" Edward had ventured, trying not to shake and sob. She'd said it was only a cough, a cold… they had made her medicine with alchemy and she had said it was working and it made her feel better.

_She'd told them it was working._

"MUM!" They had screamed, and ran to her.

_"LOST THE MOTHER AS WELL? TOO BAD FOR YOU, KID."_

* * *

Blood. It had been everywhere. His leg… gone. His brother… his brother? Al? ALPHONSE?

He was gone too. "He's gone! No!" Ed had reiterated to the night that now laughed at his loneliness and confusion.

"I won't let this happen…" Ed had vowed to himself and his absent sibling.

His hands had worked without command from his mind forging what was to be the rest of his and his brother's struggle.

"_AND THE BROTHER? OH WOW THIS IS JUST TOO GOOD. YOU ARE YOUR VERY OWN TRAGEDY. WHAT AN UNFORTUNATE SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES -"_ Abruptly Greed had stopped talking as light had shown from Edward's hands in his memory. _"WHAT… WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"_ He said. The memory began to fade and pieces of it fell away to blackness, like an old photograph forgotten and ravaged by time. This had never happened before.

The light from the transmutation burst through the scene Ed had been reliving, revealing the etches and outlines of the gate and a strange being that guarded it.

Then everything changed.

"_WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? WHAT THE HELL?!"_ Greed screamed, making Ed's ears bleed. He didn't know where he was anymore; the memory had taken hold of him and the gate loomed closer. Greed's words reverberated over and over again and the light flickered on and off sporadically, blinding them both. The circulating floor was all that was left of Greed's torture chamber, and it spun faster and faster under Edward, making his head spin with it.

_"YOU ARE… YOU ARE… YOU ARE AN **ALCHEMIST?** YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST? YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST! **YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST! ALCHEMIST!**_" Everything was falling apart. The chair was slipping away from him, fragmenting, dissecting itself into nothing… The demon guarding the gate never fully appeared, but instead his outline melted and expanded towards Ed, reaching out for him like he had reached for his brother.

Brother…

"I can't come with you." The body had said. But it had been there.

_"ALCHEMIST! YOU ARE THE SACRIFICE!"_

"The Fullmetal alchemist…" Mustang's voice floated by with his title, sending Ed's thoughts into a spiral, a whirlpool that drew him down, down, down... So dizzy…

_"NEVER! THIS IS NOT OVER, ALCHEMIST! I SHALL TAKE YOU ANYWAY! I SHALL TAKE YOU!"_

"Why isn't our alchemy working??" He had cried, just seconds ago. He clapped, and nothing. Nothing.

_"IF YOUR MEMORIES ARE NOT WHAT HAUNTS ENOUGH TO DESTROY YOU I SHALL FIND WHAT DOES!"_

"Did you hear? It was the plague that took her. How sad." They had said. Those people. They hadn't known her at all. They didn't know what sad was. They didn't understand sorrow.

_"FIND IT! FIND IT! I SHALL FIND IT IN YOUR NIGHTMARES!"_

Burning, burning… their house was burning. When they were younger they had linked hands and sung together. "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" they had chimed exuberantly. Once it was fun, but now it was time to search. He took one last look around – right held the tree they had played under. Ahead held the house they had played in. Left held the girl they had played with. She was crying.

She was crying?

_"AHH HA HA HA HA! YOU CANNOT HIDE! YOUR SHALLOW DEFENCES SHALL CRUMBLE AND BREAK INTO PIECES BEFORE ME!"_

Burning – this wasn't their house that was burning. It was hers. The yellow Rockbell house was engulfed in red, furious flames and trespassing smoke violated its picturesque image, leaving graffiti in the form of dark, billowing clouds. The fire ate away at his oxygen, his air, his soul.

_"IT IS AT YOUR CORE!"_

The image slashed apart and fell to the sounds of scraping metal – metal – she was fixing his arm but she wasn't fixing it because she wasn't there, she was gone too and everything was wrong, he shook and shivered and screamed and there was nothing left but…

Pain. She was in front of him now, crying, again, her parents were dead and she was alone but how could she be alone when they were there with her?

Fear. She was holding a gun and threatening to shoot but she couldn't shoot, this wasn't her, she was so much more than that, she was a better person than that. Her hands were hands that made people live…

Love. She looked up at him, tired, smiling through her exhaustion. She'd just helped birth a baby! A life had just come with the grace of her hands! Life, something he could never create on his own, even with alchemy. A life created always took two, the love of two people like the ones in Rush Valley, like…

Anguish. He no longer had those two people, his parents were gone and they were forsaken as they were back at the graveyard and she was wringing her dress until the seams had torn and her ensemble was drenched with falling tears…

Dark. It slivered into his thoughts and shred his dreams to nightmares, interspersing them with painful memories. His body echoed the aching in his heart with sweat and blood and contractions of muscle, breaking of bones. "Make sure to always protect your brother, he needs you…" Mother had said. "MUM! Wake up! WAKE UP!!" They had tried to bring her back and when she came back she was a monster that attacked him, she was something grotesque and repulsive so they had destroyed her again. "I'm sorry! I'M SORRY!" he yelled, for he was guilty… She had died twice, she had died, she was dead – dead. Death.

_"DIE, NOW!"_ He was being destroyed. His world was being destroyed. Destroyed…

"…Don't die." A timid face with blue, blue eyes that held a strange mixture of strength and apprehension at their depths implored him:_ Don't die_.

* * *

Don't die. Something in that image, that sentence, those words brought him back from the brink. Time slowed. The sick cycle carousel in his mind gradually ceased its movement and he realised that it had been a giant ouroboros, turning beneath him as he was tormented by Greed. When it came to a full stop, he was left standing there, a boy with a metal arm, metal leg, and human soul. That soul was still filled with memories to taunt him, hurt to hinder him, mistakes to make, and burdens to bear, but it also held something else. For him it held his ability to stand up and walk forward, and affection for the people that would help him do so. One was his brother, who was bound to him in ways he couldn't understand or describe to anyone, for it was something they and they alone shared.

Another person was a girl he had known almost as long as his brother. She was the one who would make him whole, even after he had finished and his limbs were regained.

It was then that Edward saw all the scraps of his life come together before him, not just the ones that brought him heartache and despair, but also the ones that brought him laughter and joy. He absorbed them all and watched them lead to his current moment, and then beyond. He saw stars, smiles, and sunlit skies. He heard himself berating someone for calling him short and listened to dogs barking and the songs children sung in the wintertime in Amestris. He felt himself sparring with a brother made up of flesh and bone, and felt the summer grass underneath both his feet as the girl leaned against chest, his arms around her. His head was buried in her hair. He noticed that he was taller than her.

This feeling of contentment washed over him, calming his nerves and silencing his anxieties. When the soft wind that blew in his vision changed from a breeze to the damaging blasts that had plagued him when he had first been trapped inside his own psyche, he accepted it, knowing now what he had to do: protect this image, his ambitions, the dreams which weren't nightmares, at all costs. The Fullmetal Alchemist wasn't one to be defeated so easily, least of all by his own fears.

When the world began to quake again, he was ready.

* * *

"No!" Ed shouted. He clenched his fists and fought the ringing in his ears. "NO!"

_"WHY?! WHY?"_ Greed wailed into the abyss. Ed saw his face again, the eyes now twisted and awkward, the mouth now set in a firm frown. It was slowly wasting away with the onslaught of darkness. "BECAUSE I STILL CARRY THE LIFE OF MY BROTHER." Ed screamed back.

"BECAUSE I MADE A PROMISE TO SOMEONE WHO WAS WAITING FOR ME."

Greed gurgled and convulsed as his figure began to dim and vanish, eclipsed by the black of Ed's seized mind. The only thing Ed could think to do was bring his hands together, not in a symbol for prayer, but rather one of his determination, of his preservation, of his insubordination to the evil which had tried to claim him. He clapped and alchemic electricity extended from him; he outstretched his hands until he found something to grab hold of. Something real.

He reached…

* * *

When Ed had finally stopped moving, Al was too hurt and scared to say anything. Envy was too focused on Edward to realise he had loosened his hold on Alphonse. Lust, having not seen what went on in Ed's mind, was far from satisfied. She had expected more pain then what she had seen, but then, no pain was ever enough for her. Ling was still trying to figure out what the Hell was going on, and Gluttony was still hungry. Father held strong in his stance, waiting with the rest of them for what would happen next.

After a few seconds Edward opened his eyes, propping himself up enough to cough up blood, along with the tiny remnants of the philosopher's stone. Father watched in wonder as the golden-haired alchemist looked up at him. His body trembled, but his eyes held his gaze steady. "Nice… try." He said, and collapsed.

For the first time, Father was afraid.

* * *

  
**end**  
Amor Vincit Omnia

* * *

_Dear Edo-kun,  
I am very sorry to continuously do mean things to you in my fics. (I just wanted to see what would happen if they tried to make you a sin! I'm sorry!!) If you would like to hunt one of my plot bunnies and eat it for dinner or something, you are more than welcome to. I am sure they would taste better than your boot.  
Signed,  
_TsukinoSora

**A/N:** I still don't know what this is. Sigh. Looks like I forgot a song though haha. If you caught the Lifehouse reference in this, I will give you a great big bear hug. And thank you again to the mods for the extension, without which I wouldn't have gotten to do this at all.


	4. Trace: Vestige

**Prompt:** Trace

**Word Count:** 250. YAY!  
**Rating:** Teen?  
**Series:** Manga  
**Characters:** Ling, Ran-fan, Ed  
**Setting:** Gluttony's stomach, Chapters 52 and 53  
**Disclaimer:** Nyehhhh.  
**Summary:** Ling has visions of the future when he's confronted with the past.

**A/N:** Several definitions of trace are more implied in this than said; hopefully it makes sense. "Never Say Never" by the Fray played as I wrote this.

_Vestige: A mark, trace, or evidence of something present that is no longer in existence._

* * *

**Vestige**

* * *

He stared at the ruins, trying to make sense of the array adorning their surface. The moon, the sun, and creatures carved into the rock reminded him of days spent with his retainer, her long black hair caressing her shoulders as they ran their fingertips along similar remnants of empires past. In the rare moments he had forgotten he was a prince and she had forgotten her mask, they had explored the ancient kingdoms of Xing with wide eyes, hungry for stories of olden times. But the places from those stories were sources of pride for him and his clan; they were worshipped and remembered forever…

This place was different. Xerxes had been cast aside by history's memory long ago; the fallen temples were hollow, too empty even for ghosts to trespass their halls. He left footsteps in their red dust and it swirled around him in threatening clouds. _This was what happened when power was lost,_ he surmised. Here, realms had crumbled in vacant whispers, doubt lurking in the shadows of irresponsible dynasties.

…His country would never suffer such a fate.

"So you remake what's already there?" Ling had asked Edward when he spoke of human transmutation and the inability to bring back the dead. Ling's words held trace elements and alchemic principles; his thoughts held outlines of her figure beside him as they walked the floors of his future palace in a country at turmoil's edge.

If Xing's sanctuaries toppled before he came to power…

He would rebuild.

* * *

**end**

* * *

If that 'red dust' part seemed weird - In Chinese and Buddhist philosophy, "Red Dust" is like… the mortal, illusory realm that we must escape. 紅樓夢 / The Dream of the Red Chambre is a good reference for such ideas. P.S. Random - If you think Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" is good, you should check out, "The Haunted Palace." It's crazyawesome!


	5. Superstition: Down, Down, Down

**Prompt:** Superstition

**Word Count: **250  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Characters:** The Rockbells, Roy  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hagaren. Yet.  
**Series:** Anime1  
**Warning:** Death of the Rockbells.  
**Summary:** You are Winry's father.

**A/N:** Prequel to **Sink, Sank, Sunk**, which can be found on my other profile, _SenshiAlchemist._I always thought Roy would get it over with as quick as he could.

* * *

**Down, Down, Down**

* * *

Because this bad omen, these cracks in the glass, strike at something in your stomach and linger somewhere under your chest. Because you've never believed in these kind of notions, although they laugh at you now.

You stand still, staring at the broken photograph.

The door bursts open, the picture –

_Falls –_

Fractures -

"Doctors Rockbell… I have been ordered to execute you on sight for crimes against the Amestris military…

"You have failed to respond to multiple subpoenas and…

"Warrant… for your arrest…" He cannot finish. Gun in hand, he looks at you both, young eyes set with determined fear. "…We refuse to deny help to those who need it, regardless of their nationality." Your wife says next to you. She is strong.

He cocks the pistol. "You refuse to cooperate…" He reiterates. You can't back down: your work is for good.

He shoots.

She dies.

You choke, you break, you scream her name and drop to her side and reach out to her but she's gone. The mother of your daughter is gone. Your other half is gone. The woman you loved more than you ever loved yourself is gone. For good.

Your heartstrings – _she used to hold them_ – snap in two.

The man takes one step forward, shaking hand and smoking weapon raised at you.

"Please…"

You don't remember which one of you says it; he pulls the trigger but you're already dead, been so since she hit the floor, and dark takes you - down, _down…_

**Down.**

* * *

**end.**

* * *

Because I DO kind of always write angsty / deathfiction.

Bad omen of cracked photograph= superstition? Yes? No? Nyeh.


	6. Talisman: Inferno

**Prompt: **Talisman

**Word Count:** 500  
**Series:** All, but leaning towards Manga chap95omg  
**Rating: **M  
**Characters:** Mustang  
**Disclaimer:** Oh, if only.  
**Warnings:** Um... dark?  
**Summary:** If this is his Hell, so be it.

**A/N:** I actually had this written before a lot of bad things happened in my life, but strangely enough editing this when I was still angry at the world helped me get through some of it. (Although I'm not sure being so angry was good for the actual _editing_ process...) And thank you Alkaline Trio for this one. **In Vein** is awesome. This won 2nd place wahoo!!

_You recognise this shape? It's the back of your hand,  
You've placed it on my face here again and again,  
And I don't want to be the one who takes this place in vein_

* * *

**INFERNO**

* * *

Never.

Never has he known so much aching despair. The worthless trinket sits in his palms, polluting his hands with agony and screams for vengeance.

_Let it disentigrate; crumble into dust._

Let it burn.

This is it. After years of fighting for this joke called life, Maes is six feet underground and all that's left is Roy's pocket watch; for words carved into it long ago, "Get a wife," are the only reminders of their friendship besides old photographs and maybe a shot glass or two. He should want to keep the watch, in honour of their brotherhood, but instead the talisman that once gave him so much pride and power as a state alchemist has become his bad luck charm, bringing him unwillingly to his knees at every turn, and into darkness it must go -

Along with the memories.

_He is in Ishval; winds lashing at him with sand, searing his hopes into pieces as they bite into his skin. Another comrade, gone; lost under his command. Another child, dead._

_This place, this holocaust nation ravaged by war and its gruesome, pestilent shadow, eats away at the pride of men until they are men no more - only empty souls, ghosts of dreams they once had. Their dream turned into a nightmare long ago, but Maes is there, ever hopeful and willing. He makes the days bearable._

_He is in a bar, gulping down copious amounts of alcohol, not sure anymore whether to laugh or cry that they've sent him back, claiming victory. Maes, who understands, laughs and cries with him. He makes the days bearable._

_He is in front of the phone booth, watching blood wash away from rains and mediocrity of everyday life. The passersby will make calls, not knowing what happened here. They will read the newspaper, aghast at its contents, then forget the catastrophe in a matter of days. The culprits will sneak away unpunished and he will become victim to himself and his own hatred, because now Maes is not there to make sure such things never happen to someone he called, "friend." He made the days bearable._

He _used_ to.

If this is his Hell, so be it. He will drag them down with him; gasping, choking for air as the flames rob them of oxygen - life. Let his array activate, heat engulfing him as he takes equivalent exchange too damn far, ripping into them with fire, and wrath, and passion once reserved for the people who loved him - people _stolen_ from him - people like Maes. His bloodshot eyes will scan the distance, searching for sinners to enslave in sparks, and his bitter inferno will devour them until they are charred enough to repent, they will beg for mercy and he will light them ablaze once more, and not enough will remain even to taint the sidewalk with ashes. He will incinerate the world along with his _fucking_ pocket watch, and then finally, finally be done with this and everything will burn.

_Everything._

* * *

**end.**

**

* * *

**

A/N: I try to use similar themes in all my stories because I want them to tie together, but now I'm just worried that my writing just seems repetitive. Damn. Not sure I'm entirely happy with this, but then, I'm never happy with anything I write so I guess that's nothing new.

Hmm. I liked the idea of Roy also having words carved into his watch, for some reason.

Sigh. I _almost_ got through this one without using the f-word. Almost.


End file.
